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Web design is full of problems looking for solutions. Unfortunately too many designers (and clients) forget or ignore the problem they are trying to solve, and instead focus on just the aesthetics instead of looking at the bigger picture of what the site is trying to achieve. This should cause us to start asking ourselves what our role as “designer” is exactly.

“Setting aside whether the aesthetic or style of my design is particularly original or not, I have a way of solving design problems that’s predictable, at least. For better or worse, there are certain tropes, tendencies, tricks and clichés that I repeatedly enlist in the pursuit of a design solution. I thought to myself the other day, wouldn’t it be fun to list them all out?”

Following in the footsteps of Khoi and Shaun Inman, here’s my introspective on 5 common elements that define my style

I hate boring website content. Like millions of other internet users I have to sit there and actually *read* this stuff, but I also get the fantastic job of making these sites which pain me to read. On the whole its just stagnant informational text, ‘keyword-rich’ text meant just for search engine robots, or blatant push marketing that screams at your eyeballs.

Relative font sizes are something that I’ve avoided for far too long due to bad experiences in the past, and being a picky designer who likes things pixel perfect. The new subcide design has seen me change to using em’s for all my text sizing, so that I can be sure that I’m setting a good example for everyone reading these articles.

This is not a tutorial. This will not tell you how to fix the problems you encounter. This is a list of guidelines that will help you identify what the problem is, so that you can take the steps you need to fix it. This guide has to be relitively vague, as its not about one specific problem, its about every problem you’re ever likely to encounter.

This guide will attempt to take you step by step, through the process of creating a fully functioning CSS layout. I will try my best to explain the concepts behind each step, but a lot of the time other people have already covered these things better than I can. Because of this there will sometimes be links to more information on external sites.